Stephen West’s Mystery Knit-along or MKAL began last weekend! I have been looking forward to this cast-on oh so much. I don’t know about you, but I LOVE surprises and I hate spoilers.

Early last week, I made the rookie mistake and I signed up last minute to take an online class learning Colour work in Crochet for the weekend. The class ran on Saturday and Sunday morning at 8am for 2 hours each day.

Therefore, I wasn’t able to begin the Knit-along with the vigour I had hoped! The class was interesting and I learnt some new things… but there was a ton of ‘homework’ between the 2 classes. It took me at least a few hours (maybe 4 hours) to get what I needed to done and prepared for Sunday’s class. If I hadn’t done the homework there would have been no point showing up to class on Sunday. I felt that, that would have been a waste no matter how much I wanted to start the MKAL!

Here’s some samples from the class, using the techniques, intarsia and stranded colourwork, and sometimes they were used together. I was interested in learning these techniques for the creative potential, or for just making some really fun dishcloths!

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Once Sunday’s class was finished I tossed my crochet aside and got down to the MKAL; all the while knowing I had to avoid social media for the accidental spoilers. So I’m social media ‘lite’ this week, whilst I catch up to everyone else.

SPOILER ALERT… this is where I got to on Sunday:

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I’ve now completed section 2, the wedges section. I have to say, I was not a fan of this section, it was fiddly, took a long time and I don’t have much to show for it! I want to knit hard, and these little short rows are just not doing it! Not to worry, I know that from here on in as the sections get bigger because the shawl will get bigger, I’m hoping there’s less fussing and more knitting or knittin’ as Stephen would say.

I think I’ll be caught up in time for the next clue, and I won’t make the same ‘mistake’ this weekend. If you don’t hear from me, it’s because I’m knitting. And yes… I know it’s not a race, but I love surprises and not spoilers… so it is a race, don’t let anyone fool you.